Tire and Wheel Services to Include in Your Vehicle’s Preventative Maintenance Schedule

Your automobile’s preventative maintenance schedule includes tire and wheel services. Your tires are the shoes of your automobile and your wheels are the feet that wear the shoes. Without proper tire and wheel maintenance, you will not only reduce the life you get out of a set of tires but also make it more difficult to control your car, truck, crossover, or SUV. As such, we here at Total Auto Care would like to talk about the importance of tire and wheel preventative maintenance so you get the most out of your tires.

Tire Rotation

Tires should be rotated every 5,000 miles to 6,000 miles. An easy way to remember when you need your tires rotated is to do it at every other oil change. Rotating the tires changes the wheels they’re installed on, which gives them a chance to wear down more evenly. Each wheel sits a bit differently and, as a result, the pressure points on each tire are slightly different. Tire rotations even out the pressure points.

Wheel Balance

Wheels should be balanced when the tires are rotated, as well, to ensure the wheel and tire weight is even across the axles. Signs your wheels are out of balance include increased noise and vibration the faster you go and uneven tire tread wear. It’s also important to have the wheels balanced when you purchase a new set of tires and have them installed on your vehicle.

Wheel Alignment

Your wheels should be aligned after the new tire installation and then once a year or every two years after that. You might knock the wheels out of alignment prematurely if you have a bad habit of hitting curbs when you make turns or flying over road debris and bumps. Otherwise, you can wait about a year or two before they’ll need to be aligned again.

New Tires

The time when you need new tires depends on how many miles your existing tires were built to withstand and how well you take care of them. For example, if you have a set of tires on your automobile with a 30,000-mile guarantee, you should get 30,000 miles out of the set before they need to be replaced. This mileage is dependent upon the maintenance discussed above, however, and how fastidious you are about checking and adding air to your tires when they need it.Call Total Auto Care in North Branch, MN, to discuss a customized tire and wheel maintenance plan suited to your automobile and driving habits. We’ll inspect your tires and let you know about much life they have left.